I heard that much of the outsourcing is due to the need (want) to sell in foreign markets. For example, to put lots of planes in the Japanese market, it was 'deemed appropriate' to have major assemblies built in Japan. By the Japanese govenment? Does the Japanese government fund/loan to ANA and or JAL??? (I heard this was a REQUIREMENT for planes to be sold to Japanese airlines -don't know as a fact.) If Boeing didn't do this, AirBus would? I saw the list... can't find it now... parts come from 10 or so countries as far away as Australia. Also, that this was a major reason for the delays. Initially parts had to be returned to the mfg. etc. It may turn out to be the reason for the battery screwup.
Japan has been building major fuselage sections for years (all 767's and 777's). Same for 787, but also the outer wing which is a first for Boeing allowing wing design and construction outside Seattle. Australia builds the rudder for the 777. The BIG difference this time was allowing the foreign vendors to supply engineering design off-site with minimal Boeing oversight. There were issues, and depth of experience was evident at times. Not that Boeing didn't have a few engineering issues themselves (e.g. wing SOB joint).
What's the reason for engineering outsourcing. Are the engineers union employees... potential strike? I knew parts have been outsourced for decades, I was just wondering about the process.
I think the engineering outsourcing had to do the contracts were risk sharing. So since the risk sharing involved the entire package, engineering and production, it would make sense that they would employ their own engineering staff. Boeing engineers and techs are union (SPEEA).
When I was working on 777 design in the early '90s, I was on site working for a subcontractor (Grumman), which was fairly common in those days. In fact I saw engineers from at least six other countries while I was working in Renton. It appears that on 787, the same division of labor was happening, but the difference is that it all went on off-site instead of at Boeing, and it seems now like that was a big mistake.
When was that? I have had good luck with them when using the proper charger/ maintainer for AGM batteries. I used to sell Interstate. Great battery, but that was what puked all over the front of my 308 years ago. I was unaware that they made an AGM battery until just now. Thanks for the update.
I think the defining moment was about 10 or 12 years ago when management changed the culture from "CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT" to " LEAN MANUFACTURING", (and the demise of quality standards).
It was a number of years ago. One of the big selling points of Optima early on was you could pretty well ignore them and you could. They were like the Terminator and was why so many car collectors loved them. Well not any more. I sold a pile of them and when my stack of dead Optimas reached epic proportions I began to research the problem. It all coincided with the buy out by JC. Evidently their bean counters got ahold of a previously great product. Ferrari even went to them for a short period and I am convinced that a lot of the electronic gremlins of the late 430's is because of them and their inability to provide consistant voltage. I was hired in a case based on that problem but for unrelated reasons it never came to fruition. During my research for that case I found a lot of stories like mine. Ferrari switched back to standard batteries in pretty short order. Since swearing off Optimas we have very few battery issues. Interstate does not make an AGM battery that I am aware of but I also do not have the problems you describe unless a charging system issue is present. But then I use few Interstates. It is just a popular name I threw out.
Sorry to everyone for getting off topic a bit but this IS about batteries and battery design. I found these on the Interstate site. Sealed AGM Deep Cycle/Starting, RV Sealed AGM Deep-Cycle/Starting Batteries A new Interstate AGM offering for Semi-Trucks, Interstate unveils more rugged AGM battery design | News content from Fleet Owner "Our new 31-AGM7 can accept and produce a tremendous amount of current very quickly, reducing the batterys charge time, Kimbrough pointed out. Additionally, extreme cold and extreme heat challenge a batterys ability to perform, and this new AGM battery, with its temperature-resistant properties, rises to this challenge by delivering at a high level in all climates. I will look into this more
Me too. I need a battery for the LM. I'll try one of those if they have the right size for it. Now back to your regularly scheduled topic.
Nonsense. Li-Ion batteries are very well understood devices. They replaced 100 of them - that doesn't mean "batteries almost caught fire 100 times!", but rather it simply means 100 batteries failed and needed replaced. There was a reason why 100 have failed - but, according to Boeing, while being a bit more than average, it's not a ridiculous amount. They are not lying. As stated in the various articles, there are known circumstances whereby the batteries will be used, even if they are below the threshold. Perhaps the batteries replaced were operated in this 'known to cause failure' area, and that led to failure? Perhaps a software re-write is in order, or a procedural change about what should/should-not be done on the aircraft and in what order. The idea that 100 batteries that got replaced means it's a design fail and needs to be re-done is just silly.
Apparently many of those batteries did not fail, rather their usage during normal airline operations resulted in their failure. Boeings job as an aircraft designer is to understand aircraft operations and design a product that meets customer requirements. If they don't then the product will not sell. An airline should not have to alter their daily practices for a specific aircraft type. One example given was opening the refueling door turned on the battery if ground power was not connected, thus draining the battery below limits. If Boeing didn't think of this then the design is flawed. Another way to look at is how many batteries at each airport is an airline supposed to stock?
The number may be as high as 150 replaced in what, two years? For one airline? or is it two airlines? At 16k a piece it's an economical failure for the airlines if nothing else. It's a design fail if it can't withstand normal operational/maintenance cycle activities that are commonly used on other aircraft types.
I said that they need to be redesigned because other experts have come out and said that Boeing have designed them with the cells too close, causing instability ... and the fires. One plane crash with 100+ mums, dads, daughters, sons, grand kids, etc. is one too many. This has been identified as a design flaw, redesign of the batteries is the only right and proper solution. It is not a simple software glitch. Add on top of that the fact that the batteries go flat ridiculously early ... whoever designed the batteries needs to find another job IMO. Pete
But based on that metric, any aircraft that has ever had anything changed on it is flawed. There aren't many products that don't have changes made over time, but that does not make them flawed products, but rather products where improvements were made. Unless we think everything should always be done in perfect form on the first iteration or should not have been done, then this is normal. We judge things in a vacuum of ignorance (me included in terms of batteries in aviation). We hear "100 replacements" and we say "OMG! how could they not know?". But the truth is that 100 is not a ridiculously high number. It's high, but perhaps the norm would be 80-90. We assume the number is zero or close, because none of us replaces batteries on airplanes or keep tabs on how often that happens, so we judge on an absolute scale instead of a relative one, which is a mistake.
What caused the battery fire, specifically? Of all the batteries installed in all 787's in current and past use, what percentage have failed in this manner? How long should a battery last before it goes flat? What is a normal life for one of these batteries? How many replacements in X number of flight hours would be normal? Unless one knows the exact answers to all these questions, we are passing judgement without being qualified to do so. There is a lot of presumption in this thread - everything from the suggestion that Boeing should rip out the Li-Ion batteries and go back to NiMH (or whatever), to the apparent belief that the Boeing engineers are so dumb as to not have considered the most basic metrics that even laymen on the Internet figured out. I take a different position. Aircraft are engineered to a very high degree. I also know that Li-Ion batteries are very well understood devices - very well. There is no mystery to them. And regardless of battery type, there is a lot of energy stored there, so when it fails, that energy must go somewhere. It's not that Li-Ion batteries are inherently unsafe. They are not. Dozens if not hundreds are on every flight (virtually every laptop, cell phone, iPad, e-Reader, digital camera, etc). Failures are so rare that they make the news. And in every case, something went wrong - either in battery management or manufacture - that could have been mitigated beforehand. I don't agree that Li-Ion batteries are inherently unsafe or inappropriate for aircraft use. Nor are they ill-understood or unreliable. Mistakes were made in this case, but it was not in the use of Li-Ion or on relying on that technology. It was most likely a much more simple mistake in execution, and will be fixed soon and life will go on.
I know I'll regret making this post because it will be a waste of time but I'll do it anyway to try to give relevance to the issue The truth IS, 100 IS RIDICULOUSLY HIGH FOR THE TIME AND NUMBER AND CYCLES THESE BATTERIES HAVE BEEN IN USE. The norm would be closer to 10, FOR AN ENTIRE FLEET OF 10 AIRCRAFT IN TWO YEARS MAYBE. THESE ARE NEARLY NEW AIRPLANES. Using "your" metrics we would be changing batteries in our cars every 10 days. .......................
You might want to consider the possibility that there are qualified people in this very thread that DO know exactly what is going on and know what should NOT be happening, and how often it should NOT be happening because they actually build and test airplanes. Just a suggestion........ ................
Agree... There are people on here that have experience in these types of problems. Let's listen to them. Posts like "heads should roll" and "someone needs to be fired" don't really do anything to help try to understand what's happened (as most of us want to). It's just blowing off steam. This typically is not that type of forum. Goal should be to illustrate possible issues... potential soulutions. And entertain those of us that are not in the industry but love aviation. And, of course to read Bob's tales about aviation history. He was there.
Maybe it's not a good idea to develop new designs at a large scale at all. We have good planes in service. Just keep them. Improve these designs permanently, but don't change them.
Resting on laurels is one of the reasons why boeing's market share fell from almost 70% in 1996 to a low of around 40% in 2004. With fierce competition from airbus now, and china on the horizon, they only need to increase the innovation.
100 is ridiculously high. The fleet is brand new! We go through MAYBE a dozen batteries a year (lead acid) on our fleet............and we leave them parked outside in the airplane at -40 for 8 months of the year. There are folks here that design and maintain aircraft of all complexity levels, and for us the article that Spasso posted was downright scary. There is a PROBLEM with the batteries or the charging system on the 787. Boeing needs to step up and make it right.
